The Benn family have demonstrated a strong entrepreneurial streak down through the generations.

Dick’s grandfather ran a hardware shop in Roscrea in the 1920s and 30s, in addition to the farm.

Dick’s great-grandmother Susan Benn (nee Wakeley) who jauntily recorded her trade as ‘confectioner’ in her 1879 marriage certificate, established Benn’s bakery in Roscrea.

Even today the family remember Susan Wakeley Benn as a formidable matriarchal figure. And this is another unusual facet of the Benn family history. The family’s sense of itself is so tightly interwoven with the place where they still live today (Gurtgreen and Roscrea), that many of their stories have survived for generations.

Most families can relate stories about their grandparents, sometimes stretching to stories of a great-grandparent. But where a family remains in the same place for a longer period of time, experience shows a definite link between continuity and memory.